1st Class Kid Travel Pillow Review: The Accessory Every Family Needs
Make family travel easier with the 1st Class Kid Travel Pillow!
In this review, I’m sharing all of the details on this inventive travel pillow that is perfect for air travel with small children, road trips and even camping.
As the mom of 2 kids who’ve been traveling since they were infants, I know that family trips can be stressful.
The First Class Kid travel pillow goes a long way to alleviating some of that stress by creating an easy-to-inflate bed where your children can nap on the plane.
Below, you’ll see photos of the 1st Class Kid travel pillow in action, get details on how to inflate it, and learn about pros and cons of this family travel accessory.
Spoiler alert: I won’t go on a long-haul flight with my kids without it!
This post contains affiliates. If you purchase through the links below, I will receive a commission at no charge to you.
I was provided a 1st Class Kid travel pillow in order to facilitate this review. As always, opinions are my own.
Why Do You Need a Kids Travel Pillow?
I really love traveling with my kids.
Seeing the world has been a passion of mine since I was tiny human, and I wasn't going to stop traveling because I had kids along for the ride.
However, family travel does mean a lot more balancing and planning than when I was traveling solo.
There are snacks to pack, backpacks to load up with toys, and naps to schedule.
So happy but so exhausted on that first long-haul flight
When we have to travel by plane, I often felt overwhelmed with how to keep my kids to those schedules, which are so important when they were little.
Traveling internationally with toddlers and preschoolers adds even more stress to that situation since they’re basically living their little lives without much thought on logistics.
Being able to nap even for an hour on a long-haul flight can mean the difference between arriving bleary eyed and grumpy, and being able to start sightseeing.
For kids, that rest is even more important, which is why I knew I needed to get my kids their own travel pillows as soon as they were safely able to use them.
For my daughter’s first long haul flight, I couldn’t get her settled in her chair, which admittedly is hideously uncomfortable.
She was too big for a plane bassinet, but too small to understand that she wasn’t going to be able to sleep in a normal bed.
I’d packed a traditional U-shaped travel pillow for myself, but when I let her use that, her head sort of sank down into it. That didn’t seem safe.
She also had a tiny version of this U-shaped pillow, but her head would flop forward everytime she’d get to sleep, startling herself awake.
I tried to get her to lay on my lap, but it was too lumpy. I tried holding her, but she overheated.
We arrived for our 10 day Germany road trip exhausted, and I swore I would find something that would help us on future flights.
Discovering the 1st Class Kid Travel Pillow
When we began to plan for our road trip from Las Vegas to Denver, I started to look for anything that might help my daughter rest more on our flights out west from our hometown in South Carolina.
On the way out to Las Vegas, we had a flight that landed at 9:45 PM local time (so, 12:45 AM to our East Coast bodies). On the way back, we were taking the red eye that left at 11 PM Denver time and arrived at around that same time EST.
If I ever needed her to rest on a trip, this would be the one.
I immediately out to the company and asked if they'd send me one to try out for our trip.
Just a few days later, the travel pillow showed up at our house and immediately went into the growing pile of things we needed to pack.
I had no idea if the small package would live up to the claims on the internet and worried about it more than a few times.
I stressed out over several things, including:
Would the flight attendants and/or fellow passengers yell at my husband and me for playing with the A/C vents as we attempted to fill the pillow?
Would the pillow actually fit between the seat in front of us and Britton's chair without making that other passenger wish we'd never booked the flight?
Would the pillow be able to hold up my preschooler as she slept without deflating? (I have an long standing dislike of air mattresses because of the one I used to have to sleep on at my grandparents' house that always put me on the floor by morning.)
Would the pillow create enough space for my tall preschooler?
Ultimately, I shouldn’t have worried.
We popped the deflated pillow out as soon as our daughter had had her dinner, blew it up without any issues, and had her to sleep in minutes.
She was so comfortable that we ended up carrying her off of the plane and into the rental car.
That was so much better than my experience going to Germany.
How to Use the First Class Kid Travel Pillow
You’ll want to fold up the inflatable travel pillow and place it into your carry-on or personal item so that it is easy to access.
I ended up folding and then rolling the travel pillow so that it was as small as possible, and then securing it with a small bungee cord around the cylinder that I’d made.
You don’t need to do this, as the pillow will fold down quite small and flat, but I was trying to make use of every square inch of our carry ons.
Our daughter fast asleep on the First Class Kid Travel Pillow on our flight to Nevada
The travel pillow inflates via the A/C vent above your seat, though we also found that you can blow it up manually, too.
My husband easily filled up the pillow from the A/C vent, and no one batted an eye at us.
Once the pillow was about 75% full, he then manually blew up the pillow to about 90% before placing it in between Britton's seat and the one in front of her.
Then, my husband gave the pillow a few more puffs to fully inflate it, and the it was ready for my daughter to lay down on it.
The process wasn't any more difficult that blowing up your typical pool toy once it had mostly been inflated by the vent.
When inflated, the pillow fits easily between your seat and the one in front of you without bothering fellow passengers, and provided a stable sleeping surface for your child.
We had a travel blanket at the ready for our daughter, and she quickly curled up on the pillow, which had made a little bed for her when combined with her airplane seat.
All of those worries I had were for nothing!
The blowing up process of the travel pillow was quick and unobtrusive.
The people in front of us never even blinked as we set it up. Because the pillow is level with the chair seat when it is filled, the kid using it is never actually in contact with the seat back in front of them.
The travel pillow is made of tough, sturdy material, and the valve had a tight fit once placed.
Therefore, our daughter stayed on a fully inflated pillow the entire time we used it, and there was no air leakage or drooping.
At 42" tall, our daughter fit easily on the bed created by the pillow and airplane chair. When fully blown up, the travel pillow measures 18” x 12” x 18” and weighed about a pound.
Once you get home and want to get rid of that airplane grime, just wash off the outside of the travel pillow with a cloth and a bit of soapy water.
Pros and Cons of the 1st Class Kid Travel Pillow
Things I Loved about the Pillow
Anything that makes it easier for my children to fall asleep on a plane is good in my book.
On a late, late night flight with both kiddos. Yay for the First Class Kid travel pillow!
In that case, the kids’ travel pillow exceeds expectations.
I appreciate the simplistic design that doesn’t require anything special or complicated to use it.
I also like that the pillow is a rectangle, and not a perfect square. This design makes the pillow more versatile since you can choose how high you’d like the travel pillow to be when using it in different ways.
I love that the pillow can be used many ways other than just for making a small bed on a plane: as a footrest in the car, as a small ottoman or chair while camping, or even as a way to safely fill up the space in the car so your dog doesn’t tumble off of the seat.
When folded down, the pillow is small, meaning it doesn’t add much to my overall amount of stuff for the plane ride or road trip. The pillow comes with a drawstring bag if you want to carry the deflated pillow that way, but I preferred to wrap it even smaller.
Overall, this type of travel pillow feels so much safer for preschoolers and younger elementary school kids than the traditional U-shaped ones that they use around their necks.
Since the child lays on top of the pillow instead of wearing it around their neck, the parent can easily check on breathing, temperature, and overall comfort.
Things That Didn’t Impress Me
While the pillow can be surface cleaned with a damp cloth, about 2/3rds of the pillow is covered in a soft faux suede. That fabric tends to pick up more stuff than the sturdy plastic that covers both ends of the pillow.
Having a removable cover for the pillow would also be nice, though I recognize such an addition would make the overall process of blowing up the pillow a bit harder.
I would appreciate an easy-to-deep-clean component of the pillow since airplanes and rental cars can be gross.
This is a minor quibble, but I would love if the pillow came in different colors or patterns. Since we have 2 kids, they like to personalize their items by buying separate colors or patterns.
Having multiple color options would also help me determine which pillow belongs to which kid at quick glance.
When blowing up the travel pillow, the valve can be a bit difficult to maneuver, especially the first time. Once you get the hang of it, the process of filling the pillow is much easier.
Also, check with your airline’s requirements for foot area access. Some airlines like Emirates and Air France don’t allow anything fully blocking the area in front of your seat.
Final Thoughts on the First Class Kid Travel Pillow
My daughter loved her "little bed" so much that she kept asking when we could set it up for her again.
To her delight, we manually blew it up a few times on that same road trip so she could use it as a little chair in the hotel rooms, cabins, and yurt we stayed in.
Along with our gb Pockit travel stroller, which I also love and wholeheartedly recommend, the 1st Class Travel Pillow makes going places with kids less stressful without adding extra baggage.
The website also recommends that you could use it as a foot prop for kids in the car, which I think it a great idea.
We’ve tried it out with our kids on other trips, which has worked out well.
When they’re in car seats, their little legs just dangle, and my kids have told me they’re more comfortable with the pillow/foot rest in place.
I found the 1st Class Kid Travel Pillow out of desperation, but I'm so glad that I did.
It has completely changed the way that my children travel on airplanes, and we can now look forward to trips where we all arrive rested and refreshed at our final destination.
